MWC: Wild One in Sixth

By Jason Owens - May 23, 2007

I guess somebody heard my complaints about the lack of scoring. Utah scored four runs in a wild sixth inning that saw five hits, an error and an appeal to third base. Bret Baldwin got things started with a single to right that scored Jay Brossman and advanced Dustin Hennis to third. Jesse Shriner and Erich Kemp maintained the momentum with two singles to add another run.

Then things got really wild. UNLV third baseman Xavier Scruggs fielded a sharp grounder and tagged the base for a force-out at third but his wild throw to first allowed Mike Mitchell to reach second after hitting the ground ball. Meanwhile Baldwin found his way home to give Utah a 3-1 lead.

Then, with two outs, leadoff hitter Nate Burnham hit a liner to left field, apparently scoring Mitchell and Kemp. But in a heads-up play, Scruggs appealed to the third base umpire who ruled that Mitchell did not touch third base on his way home and Scruggs tapped the base for the third out of the inning… Phew. After all that, Utah takes a 4-1 lead to the seventh inning.